Six years on from his 'Feed me better' campaign, Jamie Oliver has published his latest manifesto for continuing to improve school meals and access to cooking skills for children.
His document – launched today – lists a series of steps that Jamie is supporting, including compulsory cooking in the curriculum and nutritional standards for all schools.
School Food Trust Chairman, Rob Rees, said: “We’re always pleased to see Jamie speaking out on the issues that we’re working on with schools every day, reminding people of the huge difference that good school food can make for children, but also of the big challenges that school food continues to face.
“We completely agree that children signing up for free school meals must be encouraged to eat those meals – not just used as a way to access funding for schools; it’s something we’ve campaigned on ever since we began our work. Focusing on cooking as an essential life skill for children, from a very early age, is also vital – that’s why we’ve recommended to Government that cooking should be compulsory for study under the national curriculum, and why we train staff at nurseries, children’s centres and childcare providers on running practical cooking sessions for families.
“Offering schools cash incentives for increasing take up sounds good in theory – but we’re concerned that in practice, this sort of system might penalise children at schools where they’ve got the most to do to improve take up, and may not deal with underlying issues behind poor take up and the whole lunchtime experience. We’ve been working on alternatives which are being submitted to Government, but ultimately it’s a question of how we can best motivate all schools on this.”
